


Smile, Sheriff

by RadioFOMO



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 20:23:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7947775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RadioFOMO/pseuds/RadioFOMO
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Desert Bluffs is no more. Sheriff Sam has sworn to make sure Night Vale remains the town they know and love, but they meet more opposition than they expected... particularly from one priestess of the Smiling God who is not at all impressed with her new town's new sheriff. Against all reason, Sam soon finds themself determined to change her mind.</p><p>Starts after episode 83.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Shaky Foundation

Sheriff Sam stepped back and studied their work, balancing a discarded Big Rico’s pizza box on one hand. Their sculpture reached nearly to the top of the detention cell. The weight tipped to one side, dragging it dangerously close to the ground. That was, of course, the entire point. How could Night Vale possibly stay upright and carry the weight of Desert Bluffs? 

Sam hopped onto their step ladder, positioning the pizza box at a slight angle near the top. Their prisoner watched in silence. Sam looked her right in the eyes and jabbed the box into place with a contraband pen.

She kept smiling.

Sam impaled the box with a second pen.

"What do the lawn ornaments represent?" she asked.

They shoved a third pen through the cardboard. "Classified."

"I see," she said. "Then I'll just have to decide for myself."

"Hm." They hopped down and looked over the sculpture again. Sam usually enjoyed working with found objects — confiscated objects — whatever. It tended to confuse their detainees, and in a holding cell, confused meant nervous. Nervous meant results. Plus, it was relaxing.

Nothing was relaxing about this damnable woman and her damnable smile.

"State your name, date of birth, address, and non-citizen identification number." Sam whirled away from the sculpture and fixed their eyes on the priestess.

"Felicity Dupree," she said. Sam grimaced; of course a priestess of the Smiling God would have to be named Felicity. "My birthday no longer exists, because time is not real in Night Vale. I live at 371 Marigold Terrace, and my citizenship papers are in the queue, waiting to be signed."

"A-ha! No identification number." They plucked a contraband pen from the pile and scribbled down a note.

Felicity folded her hands, still smiling. 

"Now, Ms. Dupree, do you know why you're here today?"

One edge of her mouth curled up. "Why are any of us here, but by the grace of the Smiling God?"

"No." Sam raised their voice. "No, no, that will not do. I won't have you in here, a guest in my station, spreading your fanatical nonsense around my good officers. That cult of yours is the reason you're in this cell today, but that is it."

"The Joyous Congregation is not a cult, Sheriff. The paperwork was very clear that we do not meet the requirements to apply for cult status." Dull phosphorescent light danced in her eyes. She couldn't possibly think cult status was a joking matter?

Sam waved her off. "Call it what you will. It's no matter. I'll abolish it anyway."

"I'm sorry to hear you feel that way, but that's not something that you have the power to do."

Felicity's smile lent a gentle roundness to her cheeks. Sam's jaw tightened. They leaned across the table and lowered their voice.

"Listen here. It's enough that you come into my city and prowl around, setting up joyous congregations and whatever other mischief you people get up to, but you do not tell me what I can and can't do. I am the sheriff of Night Vale — a town with a long, classified history of disappearances, executions, and other unpleasant business that even I am not allowed to know about. So I will do whatever I like, and if you do not want to see the bottom of the abandoned mineshaft outside of town, you will also do whatever I like. Are you getting the picture?"

At last they made a dent in that woman's smile. It tightened — still there, but pulled back ever so slightly. Like a rattler coiling up. 

"You've made yourself quite clear," she said.

"Good," they said. "Now, you're not to hold any more of these silly meetings in my town. No more smiling gods. While we're at it, I won't allow more than ten former Desert Bluffs residents in the same place at the same time. Now, go on, spread the word. But not to more than ten people at a time."

Sam pulled another confiscated object from their pocket, a polished medallion with that stupid beaming idol carved into it. Felicity's gaze locked on. They let it dangle until the priestess's eyes met theirs. Then Sam hung her trinket on the sculpture — on the heavy side.

Felicity lingered in her chair. The long sleeves of her robes fluttered as she unfolded her hands. "I'm free to go?"

"For now," Sam said. "You may consider yourself on probation."

Felicity rose and swept her robes behind her. Still the picture of grace, damn her. She paused beside Sam's sculpture.

"It's well-made," she said, "but deceptive. Even though it looks precarious, the foundation is strong."

"Yes, yes." Sam waved an impatient hand. "Unfortunately, even art has to obey the laws of physics. Unless it's Thursday."

"It reminds me of our town," she continued. 

Sam bristled. "Our?"

"My apologies. My town — my old town." Felicity's fingertips brushed the Smiling God totem. "I used to think about it often, back when I was trapped in the Strex company prison."

Sam's breath caught in their chest. Recollection flashed through them like a fork in a socket.

"They wanted us to use our god to manipulate the people," she continued. "Some of us resisted. Honest to smiles, Sheriff, I saw things in that prison that make your mineshaft sound inviting." 

Sam expected fire when she leveled her gaze, even ice — that they could understand. They found neither. Her brows were set firm, but her smile softened the eyes beneath them. Clear, gentle eyes, and that set the back of Sam's neck prickling more than any of her words.

"But I learned something valuable there," she went on. "Even Strex could not take my smile from me."

Felicity took her medallion, straightened the sculpture, and then she was gone.

The cell fell quiet. Sam stood alone with their art. A moment ago they would have given anything to have that blasted woman gone, but now....

_Strex._

Sam kicked the base out from under the sculpture. Its collapse echoed until the last pen hit the ground and still wasn't enough.


	2. Sunrise

Some wore their talismans to the Smiling God around their necks. Others kept to the shadows and mimicked Night Valean fashion. A few even wore their orange ponchos.

One thing was certain — there were more than ten of them, and their eyes were all on Felicity.

"Good morning, children." She did not take her place behind the pulpit. "I apologize for being late."

Felicity's smile came automatically, but she hoped it still seemed sincere. The ones she got in return were weak and thin.

"I was visited by our town's new sheriff," she continued, ignoring the whispers and widened eyes, "and they would have us disperse. We are no longer to worship or congregate in groups of more than ten people."

Whispers rose to chatter, a rush of thin voices. Wary eyes turned to the doors, to each other, to the potted plants where cameras peeked out from between the palm fronds.

Felicity raised her hands. Her children hushed.

"We will abide by the rules of this place that is our home." She gave the palm fronds a pointed look. "I'm sorry to cut this sermon short, children. I leave you with this: the memory of the sun's light during darkness, the knowledge that it will one day rise again, and the faith that even when we cannot see, the Smiling God sees us. Smiles be with you."

She led the congregation outside and watched it dissolve. Her cheeks ached, but she did not let her smile fall until the last of the faithful had turned their backs.

"Well, that was a load of hogwash."

Felicity spun around. "Grandma Josephine! I didn't see you there."

"That's the idea." Josephine's cane hacked at the yucca leaves between them. Felicity stepped back, even though Josephine was as likely to hurt herself with that thing as she was anyone else.

"It's not wise to talk like th—"

"We're having tea." Josephine freed herself from the plant and hobbled out into the street. "Come on. I haven't got all day, you know."

That was precisely what she had, but Felicity followed her anyway. Conversations with Josephine always made for interesting theology. And she didn't care whether or not you smiled.

Josephine refused Felicity's help on the broken pavement leading up to her house. Grandma Josephine's part of town — out by the formerly new car dealer — had once been booming, but after the economic downturn it decayed as quickly as the rest of Desert Bluffs. The grey, looming figures gathered in her yard didn't even seem out of place.

"Go on, shoo." Josephine waved her cane at them. They did not move.

Felicity stalled at the edge of the walkway. The Strangers' mouths hung open — neither a smile or a frown, just... nothing. Lax, empty muscles that had given up on their faces.

"Would you prefer to have tea at my house?" Felicity asked.

Josephine's laugh came out like a chop. "No, but I can tell you would. Come, child. They haven't got me yet."

The Stranger nearest to Felicity faced her now. It hadn't moved. Felicity was sure of it — or almost sure. Had she taken her eyes off it for a moment to speak to Josephine? She looked into its curdled milk eyes and forced her feet forward.

It felt like a lifetime before Josephine closed the door behind her.

"What's your poison? Black? Green? Herbal?" Josephine filled a kettle in the kitchen.

"Black, please." Felicity stepped around the carpeted pentagram and sank into an armchair.

"Earl Grey? Darjeeling? Cream? Sugar?"

"Either is fine, and I'll take it with sugar but no cream, thank you."

"No cream."

Felicity had never heard so much judgment packed into two words. Josephine returned and made her way to the phonograph, dust billowing from a record sleeve as she pulled out the vinyl. The needle dropped. Flo Rida.

"We ought to have a word about what you said in the church, back there." She sat on the couch opposite Felicity. That couch looked so empty with only one body on it.

Felicity raised her hands, palms out. "Grandma Josephine, I'm sorry if you felt my sermon was a _load of hogwash_ , but—"

"It was beautiful." She leaned across the coffee table. "That's the problem. That sheriff won't like what you said."

"I barely said anything." Felicity glanced at the microphone wired up next to the smoke alarm. Flo Rida couldn't stop the secret police listening if they really wanted to — music that loud would get the house raided for sure.

"Like hell you didn't. The sun will rise again? If I didn't know you, I'd think you called for an armed rebellion."

"Only a violent and twisted mind could reach that far." The sun, a threat? What an absurd thought. "I was talking about hope, not weapons."

"Same thing, to the likes of them." Josephine's eyes narrowed over her glasses. "You better watch yourself, girly. This is just the sort of thing that got you locked up before."

"I canceled my sermon and told my children to follow every one of their new rules."

"Among other things."

"Practicalities." Felicity sank deeper into the cushions. "Do you understand how it feels to look the Smiling God's children in the eyes and see fear? Knowing, all the while, that you are the one entrusted with their smiles — and then simply tell them to go home and hide?"

"That's solid advice." Josephine's skin-and-bones hands folded in her lap. She sighed. "You don't know what it means to them to have you back. We needed you during the occupation."

"To do what?" Felicity sat up. "Plaster on a false smile and let Strex make a mockery of my god? There was nothing I could have done on the outside."

"Nothing you could do rotting in a corporate prison, either." A glare from Josephine was a hard thing to take. The kettle screamed. She did not relent. "Don't do it again. That sheriff's just itching for a reason to lock us all up, or worse."

Felicity's voice barely registered under the whistling kettle. "I'm not afraid, Josephine."

"You should be."

Josephine disappeared into the kitchen. Maybe she was right, but it wouldn't change things. She returned with a cup of very sweet black tea for Felicity and a toffee-colored cup of her own.

"This is lovely, thank you. Counterpoint," Felicity added, the way they did when they argued over theology, "do you remember when the mayor came to defend us, that first day after the towns merged? No weapons, just words, yet the sheriff stood down. They're all bark and no bite. We can endure this."

Josephine's cup clattered against her saucer. Her shoulders looked heavy. "Whatever you say, child. Let's change the subject before you get arrested again."

"Very well." A smile tugged the corner of Felicity's lips. Not a professional one — a private, off-the-clock smile. "Have you had any sign of your friends whom it would be imprudent to refer to as demons?"

Flo Rida rapped alone for a long couple of seconds.

"No," Josephine said. "Nothing since Halloween-time. It's like I said, just — pop. Into thin air."

"I'm sorry. You must miss them very much." Felicity reached for her hand. Josephine chose that moment to pick up her teacup.

"Now more than ever, with these Strangers about." Her slurp even drowned out Flo Rida. "I could use some of their talents right about now."

"I am sure." Felicity toed the edge of the pentagram on the carpet, careful not to cross the line onto the creepy thing — pure superstition, nothing to do with the Smiling God. "Still, it's been a pleasure having you with the congregation for the last few months. You are always welcome, I hope you know — you and your friends."

"Not quite their cup of tea." Josephine smirked over her drink. "But you're alright company, even if you're the stubbornest damn thing I ever seen come out of this town."

Felicity hid her grin behind a great gulp of sweetness. She enjoyed the company, too. It allowed her to forget, for however brief a moment, about the press of dangerous strangers outside the walls.


End file.
